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Uncategorized Tuesday, July 17th 2012 at 4:00 pm

You (Yes, You!) Can Experience the Terror of Landing a Multi-Billion Dollar Rover on Mars With XBox Kinect!

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Early next month, the 2,000 pound Curiosity rover will finally touch down on the surface of Mars and just doing that will require one of the most ingenious and daring landings that NASA has yet attempted. Now, Earthlings can try their hand at conquering the “seven minutes of terror” with a new Kinect game for Xbox. Unlike the space program, this one is completely free!

The game, awkwardly named Mars Rover Landing, is available now on the Xbox marketplace. Using the Kinect, players navigate Curiosity through three stages of descent, each one progressively more difficult. The finally stage involves the completely insane Skyhook Maneuver, where the enormous rover is lowered by cable from a hovering rocket carriage.

In addition to the game, NASA is also offering a Xbox dashboard portal that will provide information about the mission and stream NASA TV on landing day.

As far as the game is concerned, it looks pretty darn well made — which was the first hurtle it would need to cross for people to take the game, or the mission, seriously. It does seem extremely short, but that also makes it unobtrusive. The goal, after all, is to get people interested and involved in the mission — not give them Martian fetchquests. However, my one concern is that the game may belittle the actual effort that went in to landing Curiosity.  Hopefully that won’t be the case.

For those unfamiliar with the harrowing, seven minute hellride that will deliver Curiosity to the Martian surface, NASA has prepared this wonderfully cinematic video. Sit back, relax, and let your jaw drop.

(Mars Rover Landing via Technabob)

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  • Anonymous

    Hmmmm…the article describes the Curiosity rover as a “2,000-pound” vehicle.  Is that here on Earth?  If so, it will weigh somewhat less as it approaches the Martian surface.

  • Mellowhead_jer

     While the weight of this vehicle on Mars may not measure 2000 lbs as it does on Earth, the mass of the vehicle will be the same.

  • salvador batrolli

    that chick has a sexy body eh

  • Will

    Is this a joke? Didn’t you go to school?

  • Anonymous

    Yes, I did.  And the point is valid.  When the astronauts landed on the moon in 1969 as well as later, the craft was not as well fortified as it would have been had it landed on a planet with the same gravitational pull as the Earth.  The lunar module struck me as a bit flimsy but it worked on a body the mass of the moon.  When they tested the Mars rover vehicle landing on Earth, I assume they first used a variable one could call, um, one…then a variable reflecting the mass of Mars.  That’s all I was saying.  When the documentary for this mission appears on PBS’s “Nova”, they may go into the testing of the landing that was done here and how it was modified for the final mission.